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Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

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Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#311

Post by anonu »

tibbon wrote: post #182

What's it take for an engineer in the US to actually do something like this? If my boss/product manager wanted me to do something like this, I'd be calling them out for shitty politics, and telling them they need to find a new engineer because I'd quit immediately - and likely incite others to come with me. Maybe I have a higher sense of morality than others, but I'm no shill for China's power over Taiwan. I can use…

> I can use my entitlement/privilege as an engineer to say "fuck off

If it's your company, maybe you have that privelege. But in the USA you're probably an "at will" employee. I would admire your moral stance but you'd probably get fired.

Refusing to do work you're asked of will probably only get the company to find someone who is willing.

So you're better off complying and using your talents to find other ways to allow users to circumvent this issue if they really wanted to.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#312

Post by chrischen »

espadrine wrote: post #241
degenerate wrote: post #6

The degree that China goes to censor things reminds me of kindergarten. Pull the shades down, and kids won't want to go outside? Is it simply a reminder to their people of who's in charge, at this level of pettiness?

> Is it simply a reminder to their people of who's in charge, at this level of pettiness? Most countries have petty border disputes. A famous country occupies territory in Cuba where it built a military prison. Cuba claims that the military presence is occupation of territory it rightfully owns. The famous country refuses to leave; it claims it only leases it based on a hundred-year-old document, and sends $4k checks…

This is so much more egregious than what China is doing within its own borders.

Famous country also blacklisted Cuba from trade and uses the prison for illegal detentions. Talk about bullying.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#313

Post by maweki »

have_faith wrote: post #34
maweki wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people on Hacker-News would know that Taiwan exists, even though a flag is missing on their phone. I think for the general population in the US or Europe that's not so clear. If one would never hear about Taiwan, would we really "know" it exists?

> If one would never hear about Taiwan, would we really "know" it exists? It's a sort of reverse branding exercise. If you can reduce exposure as much as possible there's not going to be a lot of sentiment for supporting the cause. What would be of Palestine today without the exposure that has been directed at it.

It's not like Israel is - not talking about the truth of that claim here - denying the very existence of their neighbouring states. On the contrary, palestine and part of the palestine people are branded as great evil. Being branded as _anything_ is being "known". Famously or infamously.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#314

Post by Jweb_Guru »

reaperducer wrote: post #274
organsnyder wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps that engineer had a baby on the way and was terrified of losing health coverage, or was in the United States on an H1B visa and was afraid they'd be deported... I'd probably have made the same decision as you (I'm fortunate to have a safety net), but many people don't have that luxury.

Perhaps that engineer had a baby on the way and was terrified of losing health coverage, or was in the United States on an H1B visa and was afraid they'd be deported... I believe the applicable phrase here is "courage of your convictions." I've been fired twice for refusing to do things that I thought were unethical. Neither time did I have a safety net ready. But my life still continued. A few years ago I stood up t…

You say you didn't have "a safety net." What was your actual situation? For example, were you liable to be deported if you quit your job?

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#315

Post by tibbon »

ako wrote: post #267
dpkonofa wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Enjoy having no support or economic progress from us - bye". This would have to be done on a federal level. Just because Apple stopped doing this doesn't mean China would be any worse off. Google, Amazon, and every other tech company would still get in line to do whatever it takes to get that sweet, sweet money.

Where is apple going for production of its hardware if not to china? What other country has the knowledge, capacity, experience, time-to-market, factories and workers available to build all the iphones, iwatches, imac, ipads and macbooks?

Apple's threatened moving a lot of production to India (which has its own problems, but shows moving is possible). The new Mac Pro is to be made in Texas, and I think Apple at one point was considering a chip plant there for the iPhone too.

China holds a lot of weight, but a company with a trillion dollar market cap also can make its own decisions.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#316

Post by chrischen »

untreasure wrote: post #268
espadrine wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it simply a reminder to their people of who's in charge, at this level of pettiness? Most countries have petty border disputes. A famous country occupies territory in Cuba where it built a military prison. Cuba claims that the military presence is occupation of territory it rightfully owns. The famous country refuses to leave; it claims it only leases it based on a hundred-year-old document, and sends $4k checks…

China decided to take control of Hong Kong based on a hundred year old document.

Control was taken from China in the first place.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#317

Post by bearcobra »

reaperducer wrote: post #293
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure; but literally any day Tim Cook can say, "Ok China, I no longer play your game. Enjoy having no support or economic progress from us - bye". No he cannot. He would be immediately removed at CEO and replaced with someone who played ball. Remember, Apple is a publicly traded company. What you're suggesting is, at a whim, Tim Cook could just completely tank the company. China has far, far more leverage over Apple…

No he cannot Sure he can. Google bailed on China once. Apple certainly has the money and talent to do the same. He would be immediately removed at CEO and replaced with someone who played ball. Would he? Why do you assume that this would be bad for it share price, or that the majority of shareholders would be against it?

Unlike Google, Apple is hardware company and has a massive amount of manufacturing in China. It would be almost impossible for them to bail on that infrastructure.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#318

Post by tibbon »

ryandrake wrote: post #261
tibbon wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea; but I'm a programmer/engineer. Last time I needed a job, I had a contract for $15k that month within two hours, and an interview for a full time position by the end of the day. People in our position have the power to do things like that, and we should use that power for good.

Congratulations on the good fortune, but I’m afraid your ability to get another job instantly is not shared by the vast majority of practicing software engineers, particularly visa holders. Even in these top companies, there is a relatively small number of developers who actually have this power!

That might be true. I only really know my own experiences. I don't even have an engineering/CS degree, and have just taught myself everything. But, maybe I have some special experiences that others haven't had.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#319

Post by PowerfulWizard »

vl wrote: post #306
tibbon wrote: post #182

What's it take for an engineer in the US to actually do something like this? If my boss/product manager wanted me to do something like this, I'd be calling them out for shitty politics, and telling them they need to find a new engineer because I'd quit immediately - and likely incite others to come with me. Maybe I have a higher sense of morality than others, but I'm no shill for China's power over Taiwan. I can use…

Each truly international product has hundreds, if not thousands policies like this codified. How to render border between India and Pakistan, Russia and Ukraine, what words to exclude from dictionaries and suspend in auto-suggest, etc. For engineer it’s just another rule, they get update like “locale X passed the law to do Y, update software to comply”. It’s not their job to do legal or ethical evaluations, and it’s…

As the old saying goes, you don't create a HideTaiwan() function, you create a HideCountry() function and require Taiwan to be provided as a parameter.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#320

Post by BinaryIdiot »

reaperducer wrote: post #293
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure; but literally any day Tim Cook can say, "Ok China, I no longer play your game. Enjoy having no support or economic progress from us - bye". No he cannot. He would be immediately removed at CEO and replaced with someone who played ball. Remember, Apple is a publicly traded company. What you're suggesting is, at a whim, Tim Cook could just completely tank the company. China has far, far more leverage over Apple…

No he cannot Sure he can. Google bailed on China once. Apple certainly has the money and talent to do the same. He would be immediately removed at CEO and replaced with someone who played ball. Would he? Why do you assume that this would be bad for it share price, or that the majority of shareholders would be against it?

> Sure he can. Google bailed on China once. Apple certainly has the money and talent to do the same.

Google didn't have much of any foothold into China when it dropped. It was also purely based on software which can be toggled off relatively easy (then you just have to wind down offices).

All of Apple's products require China to produce. All of them.

> Would he? Why do you assume that this would be bad for it share price, or that the majority of shareholders would be against it?

The majority of their manufacturing and assembly is in China. China is their big growth market. Not only would it tank the share price by cutting out their huge growth opportunity but it's completely within China's power to stop almost all of their production.

The stock market reflects what wallstreet things will grow. When you stagnate your share price drops (there is no reason to hang onto it if you won't become more profitable).

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